


Good Neighbours

by Beguile



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Breaking and Entering, Catholicism, Christmas, Drinking, Fighting, Fraught Conversations, Gen, Irish Coffee, Loneliness, No One Likes to be Alone on Christmas, Suspicion, midnight mass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 02:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17113100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beguile/pseuds/Beguile
Summary: Matt invites Maggie to his apartment for a night cap after midnight mass only to find she’s not the only guest he’s entertaining for the night.





	Good Neighbours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [titC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/gifts).



> I cannot believe I got to write two gifts for titC this year! Special thanks to my beta, Dichotomy Studios, and many thanks to titC for the fantastic prompts. Merry Fratthouse ficmas to you, friend!! Please, enjoy!

* * *

 

               Midnight mass is a thing of beauty. Matt doesn’t have to see it to appreciate it. Candlelight radiates a gentle heat, a palpable glow. The scent from the pews and the old paper of prayer books intensifies. The new priest’s speaking voice is a perfect addition; the acoustics of Clinton Church were made for his impressive tenor to dance along the wood, through the pillars, and against the stained glass before pooling in the rafters.

               Even the post-communion quiet fills the church to the brim. The organist and priest allow it to stand for longer than usual, and the great swell of heartbeats that flood into Matt’s ears join forces with the warmth of the candlelight. He tilts his head softly towards Maggie sitting next to him, and she responds by lifting a hand from her lap and placing it over his.

               They’re told to go in peace, and for once, Matt feels it, rare as it is. He’s cushioned by the soft down of pulses; Maggie’s hand holds its position the way the priest held the silence, and Matt isn’t bereft when she finally releases him. He’s comfortable letting go.

               They genuflect and make their way slowly towards the door. Maggie loops a hand around his forearm and pats when his pulse thrums at the wrist. “May I walk you home?” She doesn’t let him tell her it’s not necessary. “It’s Christmas. Time of charity. Let a nun walk a blind man home.” 

               Matt smiles. “Only if you stay for a night cap.”

               She pats him again and releases his arm. “I’ll get my coat.”  
  
               The streets are wonderfully still. Matt’s cane taps alongside the soles of Maggie’s shoes. They speak like conspirators as they break through the quiet, smiles playing occasionally across their faces. Maggie asks him what he hears, and Matt makes a list: Christmas music playing on low in a few houses; parents packing presents under trees; a couple laughing drunkenly before shushing each other, “You’ll wake the kids.” He isn’t sure if he should say more, but Maggie’s heart isn’t wanting. She’s content to listen, and he’s content to keep her content.

               She lets him lead up the stairs at his building, and Matt does, slowly, aware at all times of her footsteps following him up rather than racing back down. They arrive at his door, and her heart is in her throat. Matt puts his key in the lock waiting for her to say, “On second thought,” or for her to simply leave.

               He decides to remind her: “You don’t have to–“

               Matt stops himself, distracted.

               “I don’t have to-?”

               He raises a hand; Maggie goes quiet. There, through the wall, inside his apartment, another heartbeat is rumbling away. Just sitting there, waiting, in the living room.

               Matt sniffs, hoping for clues, but Fran has been baking up a storm in her apartment. The stairwell smells of sugar cookies and mincemeat. “Go downstairs,” Matt says to Maggie quietly. He hands her his cell phone. “Give me two minutes, then call the police.”

               Maggie takes his phone. “What are you going to do?”  

               “I’m going to find out who’s in my apartment.”

               She draws a breath, hating this plan, but the way her pulse spikes tells Matt she doesn’t have a better idea. “Be careful.”  
  
               “I’m always careful.”

               He feels her eyes rolling, but Maggie tip-toes down the stairs nevertheless. Matt waits until she’s a flight away before he opens his apartment door and steps inside. Let them think he’s alone, unarmed, and defenceless. Makes his life easier when they underestimate him.

               The lights are quiet in their sockets: still off. Boy, they really made this easy for him, didn’t they? Matt comes down the hallway in silence, folding his cane as he does. When he reaches the living room, he doesn’t keep the heartbeat waiting. He whips his cane in their direction, lands a hit to their shoulder, knocking them off balance. Then Matt rushes across the couch and tackles them to the floor.

               They catch him, roll him, grapple with him. Matt recognizes the form, but he can’t place it. Lots of guys wrestled in high school. Not many of them are this quick, but Matt’s still faster, dipping out of locks as quickly as the guy can try to implement them. He starts throwing punches and gets thrown again, landing heavily under the row of windows.

               Matt hops back to his feet and advances for round two.

               “Jesus, Red,” the guy spits out a wad of blood and charges to meet him, “Merry Christmas to you.”

               “Merry Christmas to you, Frank,” Matt says, taking a swing. Frank catches the blow and comes back with one of his own. Matt ducks; Frank’s fist nearly takes out the window. They come back together in punches and blocks, two steps forward and one step back for each of them until Matt finally grabs Frank by the head and throws him towards the table. Frank grabs him by the wrist and takes Matt right along with him into the floor.

               Matt recovers quickly. He nabs his discarded cane and pushes the folded shaft against Frank’s neck. “You’re going to tell me what you’re doing here,” he says, “And then you’re going to get the hell out.”  
  
               Frank punches him in the chest. Matt holds his ground with a groan. “I was in the neighbourhood,” Frank says, striking him again. “Thought I’d stop in, see what the Devil’s doing for Christmas.”

               “You’ve seen it,” Matt says, landing a blow of his own. “Now get out.”    
  
               Frank opens his mouth to speak but he doesn’t get the chance. Switch flicks. Electricity buzzes through the walls; bulbs hum in their sockets. Lights are on, and they’re exposed. Maggie’s heart onlooks in horrified judgment at what’s playing out on Matt’s living room floor.

               “Shall I call the police, Matthew?” she says with a calm that belies her pulse.

               “Yes,” Matt says.

               “Yeah,” Frank agrees. “Let ‘em know to look behind the wall, they come in.”

               Matt digs the cane deeper into Frank’s neck. “Call the police, Maggie.”

               Frank hits him on the arm. “You bring ‘em here, I take you with me. You want that, Murdock? For them to know you? For her?” He shifts so he can look at Maggie, but then his eyes fall quickly back on Matt. “Does she know who you are, Choirboy?”

               “I know Matthew,” Maggie says coldly.

               “Oh, yeah? Not like I do,” Frank replies.

               “Clearly. But then again he’s never pinned me to the floor before.”

               Frank moves to look at her again. Matt applies less pressure so Frank can get her in full view. Pinned to the floor, upside-down, Maggie still must be a sight to behold. Frank’s heart slows in his chest. His body shifts on the floor, shoulders slumping out of an offensive position. “Get off me, hero,” he says dismissively. “You want me out of your place? I’ll go.”  
  
               “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

               Frank fights his way free. “I told you: I was in the neighbourhood.”

               Matt lets him rise to his feet, lets him shake the fight out of his shoulders, even lets him take a step around the table towards the loft. Frank’s heart hammers away inside his chest, indicative of intention but of nothing more. He can’t be telling the truth though; Frank Castle is never just in the neighbourhood. Frank Castle doesn’t do anything on a whim.

               Maggie stops Matt before he can fight Frank into giving him a better answer. “Matthew and I were just going to have a drink,” she says. “Maybe you’d care to join us.”

               Frank’s heartbeat spikes. Bare-knuckle brawl him into a chokehold on the living room floor, he’s cool and collected, but an invitation for a drink from a nun one third his size, and Frank sputters. He suddenly has no idea what to do. “No,” he starts, adds a, “Thanks,” and then he even adds a, “Ma’am.”

               None of it helps him.

               Matt recognizes an in when he hears one and takes it: “Come on. That’s a woman of God you’re refusing, Frank.”

               “You told me to get out,” Frank says.

               “I’m asking you to stay,” Maggie says, as if he has a choice in the matter. Then, as if Matt has a choice in the matter: “With Matthew’s permission, of course.”

               Matt shakes his head, feigning concession when they’re definitely working together on this one. “I know better than to disagree with you.”  
  
               Maggie asks, in a tone that’s almost sweet, “Frank?”          

               Matt doesn’t even try to stop the smirk from appearing on his face. He lets the sight of it wash through Frank and revels in the pure, unadulterated fury billowing under Frank’s skin.

               “Fine,” Frank says darkly, “One drink.” He releases a breath and turns to look at Maggie. Matt hears it in his voice, that controlled politesse of a soldier when Frank adds, again unhelpfully, “Ma’am.”

               Maggie strides confidently into the kitchen. “It’s Sister, actually.”

               Frank scrubs at his head. “Sister,” he says, sighing again. 

* * *

 

               The coffee brews. Maggie fills the bottoms of three mugs with a healthy serving of Jameson’s, the smell clashing with Frank’s presence in the apartment. Matt lingers by the couch, standing guard between Punisher and the kitchen, but gradually, he feels more and more foolish for doing so. Frank is different tonight. Dressed down, hair long, bearded. Not in his usual paramilitary best.

               Matt speaks quietly: “I didn’t know you were in town.”

               “Lots you don’t know,” Frank says, equally quiet.

               “What have you been doing?”  
  
               “Keeping busy.”  
  
               “Is that why you’re here?”

               “I’m here for a drink, then I’m gone.”  
  
               “No, you tell me why, then you –“

               “I really must say,” Maggie interrupts, projecting her voice all the way up to the rafters, “You have such a peaceful place, Matthew. With wonderful acoustics. Could hear a pin drop in the bedroom from here. Or two men sniping at each other in the living room.”

               Frank’s heartbeat flares smugly. Matt forces his fists to unclench at his sides. “We’re talking.”

               “Oh, I’m aware,” Maggie replies, closing and opening cupboards. “Where’s your sugar?”

               “Sugar?”

               Frank mutters something. “What?” Matt snaps.

               “For the coffee,” Frank says. “You got some or not, Murdock?”

               Matt shoots Frank a glare through his sunglasses as he walks back into the kitchen. He goes to the fridge and grabs the small bottle of maple syrup only to get swatted by Maggie’s offended heartbeat. “Who the hell taught you how to make Irish coffee?” Maggie says, digging through his cupboards. “You need brown sugar.”

               “In my house it was whiskey and coffee,” Matt replies. “Mostly just whiskey.”  
  
               Maggie looks for support. “You take sugar with yours, Frank?”

               “No, thank you, Sister.”  
  
               She huffs – _typical_. The sight of the syrup makes her heart tread on disappointedly, but Maggie pours a splash into one of the mugs for herself. “Don’t tell me you don’t have cream.”

               Matt takes the syrup back from her. “I won’t tell you, then.”

               “I was promised a night cap,” Maggie chides him.

               “Which in the Murdock house means whiskey and coffee.” Matt closes the refrigerator door. “You’re lucky I had syrup. You want cream and brown sugar, you take yourself back to that fancy nunnery of yours.”

               Maggie starts to fire back at him – “That fancy nunnery was all you had –“ – but Matt’s hearing drifts over to Frank, oddly quiet in the living room. Curiosity tinges every sound he’s giving off, but again, there’s something different about it tonight.

               Matt turns his attention back to Maggie: “Your hot toddy-s never had cream.”

               “Hot toddy-s don’t have cream. And you couldn’t taste them anyways,” Maggie replies. She pats him on the shoulder. “Now get that coffee to hurry along. It’s been Christmas for over an hour, and we haven’t had a drink.”  
  
               “Now that sounds like the Murdock household.”

               “What about you, Frank?” Maggie asks, inviting him back into the conversation. “Is breaking and entering one of your Christmas traditions?”  
  
               Frank’s right hand twitches, but he isn’t looking to fight anything except the urge to scrub at his head. “Don’t have any Christmas traditions,” he replies.

               “Any places to be?”

               “No, Sister.”  
  
               Matt gives the coffee seconds to stop bubbling before pulling it from the maker. He comes through the kitchen to the mugs and fills each nearly to the brim. Maggie takes one of the unsweetened cups, and she walks it over to Frank before he can come to the kitchen. The way Frank’s heart goes, she may as well be death itself coming to get him.

               He accepts the cup with another, “Thank you,” but being that close to Maggie, he can’t seem to address her specifically.

               Matt picks up the remaining mugs off the counter. He brings Maggie hers, and she bides her time between them, blowing on the surface of her mug. Taking a sip. David standing next to Goliath, oblivious to or perhaps revelling in the tumult of Frank’s presence. Matt joins her in the game, keeping a distance, but never once letting his smile drop from his face. He takes a pull from his own coffee.

               Maggie pulls back from them. “Needs cream,” she says, taking a seat in the arm chair.

               Frank’s voice might be quiet, but it’s no less demanding: “You invite a nun back to your place for Christmas coffee and don’t have cream?”

               “Or sugar,” Maggie adds, lest that be forgotten, “Though the syrup is a nice touch. Different.” She’s quiet a moment, leaving Matt to negotiate the opposing polarities in his living room before saying, “So what do you do, Frank?”

               “I do what I can,” Frank says. “Between jobs at the moment.”

               “Is that what you’re calling it?” Matt asks.

               “It’s what it’s called.”  
  
               “Been between jobs for a while. Unless the beard is your standard look now.”

               Frank’s sigh blusters through the tension rising between them. He turns his attention to Maggie, turns his voice to her: “How do you two know each other?”

               “Matthew and I?” Maggie settles into her seat. “We go back a ways. I knew Matthew when he was a boy.” Matt braces himself for Frank to ask more questions, but Frank drinks his coffee, minding the lines that Maggie draws.

               “I think I can guess how you two know each other,” she says.  
  
               “Yeah,” Frank agrees.

               Matt finishes another drink of his coffee. “He shot me in the head.”

               Frank speaks through clenched teeth, firing off words like rounds from an automatic: “You were wearing your costume. That bullet wasn’t gonna kill you.” He takes another drink, steadying himself. Then to Maggie, softer and slower: “He was wearing a helmet.”  
  
               Maggie is her usual calm self in the wake of the news. She sips at her drink, languishing, then, “Pity he doesn’t still wear one.”

               “You’re not wearing armour?” Frank asks, incredulous.

               Matt listens to the patient crawl of Maggie’s pulse and realizes how quickly the tables have turned on him. How easily she played this situation. “It’s not a symbol of who I am anymore.”

               “Doesn’t have to be a symbol. Needs to stop you from getting shot.”

               “Oh, it doesn’t have to be a symbol, Frank?”

               “My symbol’s bulletproof.” Frank scoffs. He tries to take another drink, but he stops himself. “What symbol would you prefer? You stand for the same thing you did I caught you running around in that devil get-up of yours.”

               “How would you know that? Where have you been?”

               “Around.”  
  
               “Around my apartment.”

               No answer. Frank draws his own lines, and Matt is left to cross them. He opens his mouth to speak but Maggie cuts him off: “Your symbol’s bulletproof. What happened to it?”

               Hard to tell how much Maggie knows, ever; that heartbeat of hers is a dutiful march to the altar. She knows how to ask questions, knows how to twist and leverage and pressure to get the information she wants.

               And Frank knows it. He seems to seep out of the room, leaving only the steam from his coffee and a lowly patter of a heartbeat behind. “I got a chance to be somebody different.” He draws a breath, retreating further from the room. Isn’t like Frank Castle to be ashamed, but there’s something like shame in the way he retreats. Maybe the fact that he’s retreating. “I took it.”  
  
               “Second chances are important,” Maggie says.

               “Yeah.” Frank eases slowly back into the room. “Yeah, they are.”

               “So why are you here?” Matt asks.

               Frank finishes his coffee. He stands for a long moment, swirling the dregs in his cup. Matt knows the sound. Frank’s searching for an answer that isn’t to be found.

               Maggie comes to the rescue: “He was in the neighbourhood.”

               Matt opens his mouth to fire back, but he finds he can’t. He’s too busy listening as Frank drifts out of the room again, chased out by the truth.

* * *

                They ease into a silence that’s almost companionable, or at the very least one with the opposite of animosity, a lack of palpable tension. Snow starts falling. Matt hears it. Less a sound than a muffling of sounds, a mollifying of the city. A weight to his walls. He likes winter for its density, the cushion it provides. Snow makes for a nicer landing than pavement or dumpsters; it insulates his apartment from the screams that he can’t reach. Now, it cradles Maggie and Frank and his heartbeats.

               “I should go,” Maggie says as she finishes drying the last of the mugs. “The children will be waking up soon, and I can’t be spreading holiday cheer if I’m dead on my feet.”

               “Never knew you were one for spreading holiday cheer,” Matt says, already grabbing his coat for the walk.

               “I seem to recall making you smile occasionally,” Maggie replies, reaching for her own coat. Matt holds it for her as she slips her arms into the sleeves. She thanks him, then, “You walking with us, Frank? I can’t imagine Matthew’s going to leave you in his apartment unattended, and I’m afraid I can’t leave knowing you’ll be brawling on the living room floor on the Lord’s birthday.”

               “I’ll let myself out,” Frank says, inching towards the stairs to the roof. “Nice talking with you, Sister.”  
  
               “Christmas mass is at eleven tomorrow –“

               Frank stops her: “Thanks, but uh…no thank you, Sister. Haven’t been to mass in a long time, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.”

               “Well,” Maggie says, buttoning up the last of her jacket, “If you ever find yourself in the neighbourhood.”

               “ _Don’t_ ,” Matt mouths to Frank behind Maggie’s back.

               “My, these acoustics,” Maggie says with a roll of her eyes. “This must be how you feel all the time.”  
  
               “What?”  

               “She’s talking about your mutant ears,” Frank says.

               “You too?” Maggie asks him.

               “Yes, Ma’am. Sister.”

               “Obnoxious, isn’t it?”  
  
               “Yes, Sister.” Once again with the smug heartbeat.

               “Let yourself out,” Matt orders him. “Or don’t. I’ll be happy to let you out for you.”

               Maggie talks around him: “Nice meeting you, Frank.”

               “You too, Sister,” Frank says. He climbs the stairs to the loft. “I’ll see you round, Red.”  
  
               “No, you won’t,” Matt calls after him. He listens to the door close, to Frank’s footsteps walking across the roof. Away, thank God. He turns his attention back to Maggie, who is too calm, too cool, too collected as she moves towards the door of the apartment.

               They’re quiet on the walk back: Maggie content to keep silent, Matt focusing intently on the rooftops. He can’t hear Frank, nor can he hear the sounds of explosions or gunfire. He never did get Frank’s reason for breaking and entering. He’ll have to get it later in a more private conversation.

               “Does he do that often?”

               “Who? What?” Matt asks.

               “Who do you think?” Maggie says.

               Matt bundles himself up against the cold. “It’s been a long time since I talked to Frank. And he’s never broken into my apartment.” He casts a wide net with his hearing and comes back with nothing but families asleep in their beds, children whispering to each other in their rooms that they need to sleep for Santa to come. Punisher nowhere to be heard.

               “That doesn’t strike you as odd.”

               It’s one of her leading statements. Matt sighs against the cold. “Frank broke in because he wanted something.” He senses Maggie nodding as she walks and continues, “He didn’t get it because you were there.”

               “Are you sure about that?”

               Matt drifts away from her. Snowflakes spark against his face, through his hair. He’s uncomfortably warm and they’re shockingly cold. “What are you getting at, Maggie?”  
  
               “It’s Christmas, Matthew,” she says. “No one likes to be alone on Christmas.”  
  
               “You’ll find most statements that start with ‘no one’ have an exception in Frank Castle.”

               “Your argument would be more convincing if we didn’t just share a drink with the man.”

               “He wanted something. When I find out what, I’ll be sure to tell you.”

               “Frank Castle’s dead according to the news.”

               “Yeah,” Matt says, “And so are a lot of people, thanks to him.”

               “Anyone recently?”

               He almost comes back at her, almost, but Matt stops himself at the last second with a laugh. “Are you sure being a nun was your calling? Because you’d make one hell of a lawyer.”

               Maggie stops; Matt stop with her. Together they stand on the sidewalk, breathing in the snowflakes, and slowly, his heart starts to come out of his throat. His temper settles back down. The night goes back to the nice that it was before he came home to find Frank in his apartment.

               “I am not condoning the actions of a man like Frank Castle,” she says. Matt tries to interrupt, tries to explain that he knows, but Maggie doesn’t let him. She doesn’t need him to say it: she knows, she understands. She continues, “But the man I met tonight doesn’t strike me as the type to pull punches, even with a witness. If he wanted Daredevil, he would have talked to Daredevil. He would have gone looking for Daredevil.”

               “He did.”

“No, he didn’t. He went looking for Matt Murdock.”

               Matt draws a steadying breath straight from her resolve to him. The snowflakes feel less abrasive now, more comforting. Snow blankets the world and puts it into soft focus. It gives Maggie’s heartbeat the sound of footprints crunching through fresh powder. “Let’s say you’re right,” he says, “Why?”

               “Why, what?”  
  
               “Why…?” he knows the word, he hears it so clearly in his head, but the weight of it on his tongue is unbearable. He hates himself for even thinking it.

               Maggie is so close to him, all of a sudden. She hasn’t moved, but it’s like they’re chest to chest. The snow muffles her voice, smoothing the edges, and her words come with the same weight as the one in his head.

               “Why you?” she asks.

               Matt nods: quickly, dismissively. Trying to move them along, away from what she’s said aloud. “Yeah,” he says.

               “I can think of a few reasons.” Her heart leaps as if she’s about to say more, but Maggie doesn’t, for which Matt’s grateful. Instead, she brushes her fingers through his hair, straightening his part, then she runs her hands down the lapels of his jacket and gives him a little tug of encouragement. “I doubt he’ll ever say, even if you ask him.”

               She places a hand on him, turning them both, inviting them to continue walking. Matt falls into step beside her, hand on her arm for the first time. Letting her lead him down the snowy sidewalk towards St. Agnes. “You never know,” he tells her, “I can be very persuasive.”

               Maggie laughs. “Yes. And stubborn.”

               “And obnoxious.”

               “That too.”  
  
               “Must have gotten those qualities from somewhere.”  
  
               “I can’t imagine.”

               Matt finds himself laughing then, his voice a rolling tenor under hers, playing along with the buzz of the streetlamps and the spark of snowflakes on the empty streets.

               Maggie crosses her other arm to her chest, wrapping her gloved hand around his on her bicep. “You of all people need to have faith in second chances.”

               “I do,” he assures her, squeezing her arm.

               They come to the door of St. Agnes. Maggie embraces him once more and bids him a good night, thanking him for the drink.  

               “Oh, Matthew.” She holds her position at the door, her petite frame dwarfed by the hulking presence of the building behind her, but there’s so much power in her stance that the whole world seems to tremble around him. “When you see Frank next,” not if, “Tell him that if he ever shoots you in the head again, armour or not, he’ll have to deal with me.”

               Matt smiles. “You sure you don’t want to tell him that yourself?”  
  
               “Pray that I don’t have to,” Maggie says, opening the door and slipping inside, “For his sake.”

               “Merry Christmas,” Matt says.

               “Merry Christmas,” she replies.

               The door closes between them.

* * *

                Matt gets off the sidewalk, taking to the rooftops for his trek home. The lack of sirens would be alarming any other night of the year, but Christmas Eve is typically quiet. People are at home sleeping or saddling up for the first runs of _A Christmas Story_ marathons. Daredevil doesn’t have to be out tonight; neither does Punisher for that matter, if Punisher still exists.

               Once he arrives at his own rooftop, Matt doesn’t stop. He retraces Frank’s steps off the roof by the impressions in the snow. He weaves a path towards the East River, skidding to a halt when there are no more roofs left to leap to, and he scans for signs of life outside of the ordinary.

               He’s rewarded with the sound of footsteps, barely concealed, creeping up behind him.

               “Hi, Frank.”

               Frank responds by coming up to the rooftop ledge next to him. They lean over the quiet street below, absorbing the sounds of the traffic. Frank’s beard catch the vibrations, braiding them into a sort of hum, one that Matt can’t help tilting his head towards. He feels Frank far more than hears him.

               “Why’re you here, Red?” Frank finally asks. “You come looking for a reason, you’re gonna be disappointed.”

               “Not here for a reason,” Matt says. “You mean what you said? About a second chance?”  
  
               Frank doesn’t say a word. He gives Matt a small hum, but it’s non-committal, loaded with plausible deniability. Only his heartbeat gives Matt an answer: unwavering, unhesitating, unflinching, but slightly elevated. “I go by Pete, now.”  
  
               “Pete?”

               “Yeah,” Frank shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, “Pete.”

               Matt shuffles down inside his coat, burying his hands into his pockets with his cane clutched to his side. The wind comes in cold and fresh off the river, snowflakes sparking against his skin. He shivers, tries to stop his teeth from chattering.

               Frank taps him on the arm. The smell of bourbon lights the air. Matt laughs, accepting the bottle he’s being offered. “Thanks.” He takes a sip, hands the bottle back. Frank takes a long pull himself. “You had that on you the entire time?”

               More silence from Frank, but Matt does hear the sloshing of bourbon in the bottle from another drink. He cracks a smile, unable to help himself. Warmth spreads through his chest from more than just the alcohol.  

               He turns away from the rooftop edge. “You hungry?”  
  
               “What?”

               “Are you hungry?”  
  
               Frank’s stare hits Matt in a real, visceral way. “Are you asking me to breakfast?”  
  
               “I’m asking if you’re hungry.”  
  
               “Couple hours ago I broke into your place.”  
  
               “God damn it, Frank.”

               “I shot you in the head!”  
  
               “Are you hungry or not?” Matt demands.

               Frank scoffs, disgusted, and he waits out the last vestiges of Matt’s patience before saying, “Yeah. I could eat.”  
  
               “Come on,” Matt says, unsnapping his cane.

               “It’s Christmas morning, Red. The hell are we gonna get breakfast?”

               “My place.”  
  
               “You’re inviting me back to your place?”  
  
               “Yeah, Pete,” Matt replies, “I am. You coming?”  
  
               Frank considers his bottle of bourbon and the river for company. By the time he recaps the bottle, it seems apparent that he’s staying, but then he’s stepped next to Matt. “Lead the way, Murdock,” he says.

               They walk off the rooftop together.

* * *

 

Fin.

 


End file.
